


When My Time Comes

by lollipopmania



Category: Naruto
Genre: Coffee Shops, F/M, Multi, Multi-Era, Posted Elsewhere, Suits, anyway they fall in love, or are they already in love?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-15
Updated: 2014-12-15
Packaged: 2018-03-01 15:51:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2778899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lollipopmania/pseuds/lollipopmania
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shikamaru has no interest in small talk. No interest at all.</p>
<p>He can’t even think.</p>
<p>He glances back and inclines his head. “The bedroom is clean.”</p>
<p>He watches as Temari turns to look at him, slow and steady. She blinks.</p>
<p>"Will you stay over?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	When My Time Comes

**Author's Note:**

> a/n: well. it's that time of year again: super long, super angsty, super shikatema fic time. this was written over a long time (too long) and is very much based on a hidaka shoko short. this also steals a line from the second season of endeavour. anyway, please read and please enjoy and then please leave lots of feedback.
> 
> as usual, many many offers of gratitude to apps and carolnuts, for helping me and encouraging me through this. and thanks to tumbler user batcows for the extra help!

**YOU CAN JUDGE THE WHOLE WORLD**

**ON THE SPARKLE THAT YOU THINKS IT LACKS**

**YES, YOU CAN STARE INTO THE ABYSS**

**BUT IT'S STARING RIGHT BACK**

—Dawes, When My Time Comes

* * *

_"Do you remember your first love?"_

_Temari pauses and lifts her head. "Where did that question come from?"_

_"Mine was a girl in my third grade class. Her name was Naoko," he responds without answering._

_Temari places the newly filled bowl of rice on the table between them, turning back to the kitchen to grab the coffee pot._ That's not your first love _she wants to say. Your first love isn't the time you became conscious of another in a sexual manner. It isn't your first crush. The first time you feel butterflies and heartbeats over someone. Your first love is the first time you feel your heart stop beating._

_"It was my cousin," she says instead. "I was ten."_

_She can't tell him about her real first love. After all, the story was long and pointless. Her husband wouldn't understand either — how could he?_

* * *

"You want to meet  _where_?"

"It's the first cafe you'll see when you walk into the station," Tenten explains, "it's on your right... well, only if you're coming in the West Entrance. Either way, it's the first one there."

"Okay got it."

"So fifteen minutes?"

Temari is only ten minutes away from the given station, but she answers affirmatively and then clicks the end button on her phone. Her shoes click on the pavement and the heat of the afternoon convokes in the small of her back. She wonders how much longer she can afford to wait in the sun before the perspiration restricts her from removing her blazer.

Not much longer, surely.

It doesn't matter much. The matter is mundane and she will have time to cool off in the cafe before she meets with anyone of any importance. Tenten, while certainly an important figure in Temari's line of work, was a friend and wouldn't care about any appearance malfunctions.

So Temari decides to hurry. The quickened pace would surely race her pulse, but the longer time spent in air-conditioning, the better.

As Tenten had said, coming in from the West Entrance there is a cafe on the right-hand side. The windows stretch almost the entire wall with a clean cursive painting in green of COFFEE above the doorway.

Temari pulls open the glass door, pausing to make sure it shut behind her before turning her gaze inside the restaurant.

She isn't sure why she delayed. It is a mistake, a second retardation. It is meaningless, turning to make sure the door is shut, but, she thinks, it made all the difference.

Perhaps, had she seen him first and not turned to look into his own gaze, just maybe, she would have not lost her bearings. Seeing Someone and Seeing Someone Look At You are two very different things and Temari blames the latter, because as soon as she saw him, every rope swung out of her grasp, every breath left her lungs and she choked on her own stomach.

Shikamaru Nara stares back at her. Just looks. Expects.

He looks the same. Older, bigger, perhaps. A different haircut and different lines, but still the same.

"Can I help you?" He asks.

She nods, short and clipped. He is looking at her with different eyes. Dark and easy and through her instead of inside her.

She says nothing until she is sure she can speak sense. "Two. Please."

He clearly doesn't recognize her and so she won't recognize him.

After all, she thinks, why would he? She had forgotten about him, it would follow that he would forget her as well.

He beckons and she follows behind. She doesn't recognize his back as her eyes lock on it. After a second, she averts her gaze. She feels every vibration in her foot while her heels click along the wooden floor as he leads her to a small table and set of chairs against the opposite wall.

"Here you are." She sits and he hands her a menu. "Anything I can get you started with?"

Temari swallows. "An Americano. Iced."

"That'll be right out," he answers. She glances back up to his face. There are no lines around his eyes and no scars grated into his skin. The longer she looks — a few seconds at most — the more unfamiliar he appears. He smiles at her and his eyes crinkle but it looks practiced and deliberate.

Temari doesn't thank him. Instead, she takes a few deep breaths, shrugs off her jacket, and keeps her eyes trained on the small cup of sugar intently.

The time passes quickly and Tenten sits down long before Temari feels as though she has aptly gathered her thoughts.

It wasn't that seeing Shikamaru was so emotionally evoking or anything. It was just so completely unexpected that she had no preparation or even ability to gather her much protected wits.

"Temari. Did you find the place okay?"

Temari offers a smile. "It was right where you said it would be."

"Sorry we had to meet here. There were just a few things I wanted to go over with you. I hope you don't mind." Tenten inclines her head, "nice place though, isn't it?"

"Very. And no, honestly, it's fine. I could use the caffeine."

As soon as the words are out of her mouth, her drink is placed before her.

She doesn't look over but can see him standing with his hands on his hips. "You didn't tell me you were here with Tenten," he says, plainly to Temari but Tenten is the one that responds.

"Just a pre-work meeting."

"I would've given you your usual table."

Tenten is smiling up at Shikamaru and so Temari follows her eyes out of politeness. He isn't looking at her though, so bites her tongue and wraps her hands around her glass.

Tenten waves her hand in dismissal. "No problem. It's good to change things up."

Shikamaru laughs under his breath. It is short and low and unfamiliar. "Well then."

"So you come here often?" Temari asks after he has left.

"A few times a week. It's in my station so it's easy. And the coffee is exceptional. Did you look at the list?" Temari shakes her head. "If you come again you should. The owner — that guy who was just here — he has thirty different blends or so. I haven't tried them all."

Owner? Temari isn't surprised. She hadn't expected anything — she hadn't (had tried so hard not to) thought about him since the last time she saw him.

He is twenty-five, if she remembers correctly (of course she does). A little young to be owning a shop, perhaps. But in high school, she figures, he was eager and smart and ambitious in his likes.

She finally turns her head to see into the rest of the shop. She hasn't paid it any mind before, but the design is casual and contemplative at once and if this were a different place in a different time maybe she would make it her own. There are certainly a number of customers here considering the hour and she imagines he stays busy.

Temari tries not to look for long, and it is easier thought than done. Once she allows the look it is hard to turn away.

He is the same in many ways. All sharp angles and bony joints. His pants fit well and his shoulders are filled and not as lanky and loose-limbed as she remembers. But he is still slimmer than the men she is used to. If she had expected something, she would have expected more.

Not  _more_ , just... more difference. But he looks the same. Different — unfamiliar. Like all the pieces of his form have been replaced by exact replicas that paint the same picture but use different brushes. Still, the same though.

She tries not to dwell on his lack of recognition as Tenten draws out her folders. And she was right: the coffee is fantastic. Exactly as Temari'd expect from Shikamaru.

* * *

There are still boxes in her apartment. Not many and not compacted into one area; rather, she has a dozen or so all over the place. The majority have been opened and ruffled through, just not unpacked.

It isn't for lack of time but general lack of interest. She has no immediate use for the belongings and thus no motivation to sort through them, though she supposes that she must in the near future. Bachelor or not, she was not one to be particularly untidy.

Honestly, she just hadn't expected to be divorced so soon. When they'd gotten married she'd wanted to form a life; a family with him. But her husband had had different expectations.

( _I've found someone else._ )

They'd met on a blind date. It wasn't love. She probably didn't even need him.

—She wasn't settling. You can't settle if you're never looking for anything

But they were once married and now they were not.

Temari dries her hair with the towel on the hook and then goes to take the teapot out of its whistle.

She doesn't mean to think on Shikamaru anymore. No more than she has all day. He has no right to occupy so much of her mind after one interaction. Especially when the feeling was so clearly lacking in reciprocation.

He hadn't even responded to her name.

Then again, it had happened ten years ago. Ten years was a longtime. A lifetime, for some people.

She remembers it. Even if she thought she'd forgotten. She remembers him. Fondly and melancholically and not in technicolor but certainly with live feeling. She remembers the way his fist clenched around the railing on the rooftop as he gazed everywhere but at her that and the way the fruit juice would drip lines down his chin during the spring festival. She remembers the things she thought she'd forgotten, but somehow she couldn't even manage to do that.

Still, she thinks, even though I did so much to you... shouldn't there still be more of me in you?

* * *

Temari comes to the shop again.

She waits a few days, sure, but soon her curiosity gets the better of her.

He is there the moment she opens the door, behind the counter, leaning down to whisper in an ear.

The girl has small shoulders and a tan complexion and she laughs at something he says. He is close and she puts a hand lightly on his chest to move him away.

There is no mistaking it. Temari is staring at something intimate enough to be considered private. Shikamaru is smiling coyly at the girl. When she nudges him and he looks up to see Temari his grin changes. It doesn't diminish, but turns into a customary smile. Shikamaru leans his hands against the counter. The tendons in his arms are long where his the sleeves of his dress shirt are rolled to his elbows.

"Hello again. If I remember correctly, you came in with Tenten, right?"

She gives a slight nod of her head in bow.

"Will she be meeting you again today?"

"No. Just me."

She figures she can take a seat where ever, but Shikamaru steps around the counter and gestures her to a specific table. It is the same one she sat at last time.

"Iced Americano?"

She swallows and inclines her head to him from her seat. Selective memory, he has. "Yes."

"Is that all?" He is holding a menu but has yet to present it to her.

"For now."

"Okay."

Temari takes out a periodical while she waits. When he comes back — quicker, this time, she thinks — he tells her to take her time. "Tenten and such often do work here. We're located in an office district after all, so we have quite a few customers like you."

"I see. Thank you."

* * *

She finds it odd that he has really forgotten about her.

Perhaps though, this makes them even.

After all, she was the one who had initiated their relationship in the first place. She was the one who had wanted it to be classified as something that had never happened. She had wanted to file it away, as twisted and vulgar as it was, and regarded it is a Relationship that Cannot be Told to Anyone.

A momentary confusion.

She had wanted it to be erased and had thought of nothing else.

Temari was the one that had tried to forget his everything, so perhaps it was only fair that he had forgotten hers.

(his smile is the most different now than it was before) she thinks

* * *

"She's writing a piece on a new apartment development." Tenten explains as Shikamaru looms over their table.

"Oh?" He asks, "you mean to buildings just down the street?"

"Those are the ones."

Shikamaru turns to Temari. "What are you writing on?"

"The real estate company was recently acquisitioned, so I'm writing mainly on that."

"What kind of journalist are you?"

"Investment."

"Her father runs Suna Investment Management."

"Really? So... you're kind of in the family business."

Temari raises her brow and Shikamaru sends her an unreadable look. Their gazes meet for the first time in a long time.

(so  _your grandfather owns the coffee shop downtown?_ )

"In a sense." She answers.

"Nara," Tenten says, leaning back in her chair with a hand on her neck. "Don't you live in the area?"

He breaks eye contact with Temari and looks at the other customer. "I do. In those very apartments."

"I didn't know they were open yet?

"Last week."

"Well," Tenten says, "if it's not too much, could you possibly show us around sometime soon? It'd be more helpful to get another interpretation of the place. I'd imagine."

He doesn't look to Temari, but smiles and his eyes crinkle as they always do. "It'd be my pleasure."

* * *

When Saturday comes Temari shows up to the coffee shop ten minutes late.

She has spent an hour in the mirror. It's not much to think about. But she feels as though she must find something more than adequate. More than usual. More than before.

She settles on nothing different though. Nothing to draw attention.

After all, she doesn't want his attention. She doesn't want his affection or love. Temari isn't sure what it is she  _does_  want exactly. Perhaps his recognition. But that is selfish. And yet, she returns to the shop again and again.

"Thank you for coming in on your day off," she tries. She is sitting at the bar this time and Shikamaru is standing behind it making a fresh pot. Tenten is still not here, and Temari had hoped in her tardiness that Tenten would have been in full conversation so that she may not have to say anything to him herself. But they are alone now and he has barely said more than two words.

"I've brought a recording device," she says, pulling it out onto the counter. "If you don't mind."

"Not at all."

He turns around after a longer silence and places an empty mug in front of her. She has always ordered the same iced coffee, a fact he frequently makes light of, but now he serves her what he is drinking.

"Dark roast." He responds to her unspoken question.

"Oh."

He pours her cup and then one for himself. Her pulse is steady but suddenly the cold expanse Temari had solidified around herself these past few weeks feels void and gone. She is certainly much too open a book and is far from unreadable to him.

"Our cafe's blend is strong," he says patiently, pausing to take a sip himself.

"This is really good." Warm and spicy but deep as well.

"Just how you like it."

He says it simply but she can't hide the way her back shoots straight.

She thinks, for only an instant before he speaks again, perhaps she should call out his name.

"Surprisingly, tastes don't seem to change from the past." He continues.

They are only separated by a foot-wide counter, but he seems a million miles too close, even if his eyes are trained above her head and he is doing the same thing he did ten years ago: looking everywhere but at her.

"Your hands and the shape of your fingers haven't changed at all." There is no breath in her lungs and that is when he looks down at her. "But there is no ring. You're married, why don't you have one?" His eyes are dark and alive and she feels as though she could never face them as he leans down and closer, now occupying her space in addition to everything else she has. He stops only when he is so close, she can no longer look away. "Isn't that right,  _Temari_."

She tries to inhale when he backs up and takes another sip of his coffee.

"Visiting my cafe several times like this." His tongue snakes out to lick the top of his lips. "I tried to ignore you. Wanted to." He smiles a little but there is no humor behind it. "You came in by accident one day. I thought it'd be better to ignore you than deal with it."

He repeats his actions again: placing his mug on the counter and leaning back into her face in confrontation. "But you're here now, aren't you? Should we talk about the past then? What you said ten years ago... about having a so-called 'normal life'?"

* * *

He wondered, sometimes, what would have happened if he'd never approached her that day. Had he never spoken to Kankuro and never reached for her matches. Had he never looked at her (really at her)... would his life have turned out differently?

Nearby there was an old-fashioned cafe where the beans were skillfully roasted and the customers relaxed. There was something about the cafe, as if it'd always remain unchanged. And he admired the atmosphere of the place.

After he'd skipped up a grade, the amount of homework and studying had increased from practically nin to at least a few hours per night; a dedication Shikamaru was wholly not ready to give. Consequently school had become more difficult and the time exclusively allocated to sleep had become compromised.

Choji was the one that had first introduced him to the old-fashioned cafe. He'd insisted on calling Shikamaru  _senpai_  now that Shikamaru was a year above his age group, and part of his duties as a good kouhai was to support his senpai. And so every morning, Shikamaru woke up from the homeroom he'd slept through to find a fresh paper-cup of coffee on his desk by his elbow.

Choji's half-joking attempt to keep Shikamaru awake ended pretty quickly into the year when it was too tiresome and expensive for a middle-schooler to keep up, but Shikamaru still pursued the caffeine.

And it wasn't just any caffeine — it was easily the best he'd ever had. Warm blends of beans that both evoked him and kept him addicted.

"That old cafe," Neji would brush off, "I didn't think you'd go to such a place, Nara."

"You know it?"

"Isn't that place owned by Kankuro's grandfather?"

"Really?" He'd known Kankuro by name and face, but apart from the capability to identify his person, they had no relationship. They were in the same grade in the same class, but they ran in different circles. Shikamaru was young and smart whereas Kankuro was passionate and popular.

"Yeah," Neji'd said. "We went to the same middle school."

"Hey, Kankuro," he tried from across the room. Kankuro was sitting atop his desk with a cluster of the basketball club. He looked over. "Your grandfather owns that coffee shop?"

"What about it?"

"Does he own it?" Shikamaru asked again.

"Yeah."

Shikamaru stood up and walked over. He wasn't very cold, but he came off as such through his general lack of energy and incapability to be outgoing. Still, he walked over now, long arms tucked into the pockets of his uniform, shoulders prepared to shrug.

Kakuro raised his brows when Shikamaru came to stand before him. "What about that old man's shop?"

"I was wondering, if perhaps, you could introduce us?"

Kankuro's friends snickered behind Kankuro's desk, but the older boy ignored them."Why are you interested in him?" He asked, head inclined.

"I'm interested in the blends he makes," Shikamaru clarified, scratching his head. "They're... inspirational."

Kankuro laughed at that, loud and long and genuine. Shikamaru waited patently, not the least bit riled. "Well, you're out of luck." Kankuro said when he'd finished. "My grandfather 's old. Practically dead. Right now my uncle is running the place, but once grandfather dies, that place 'll be gone."

Shikamaru bit his tongue.

"You could talk to my sister though," Kankuro added as an afterthought. "She works there after school, so she probably knows more about it."

"Your sister?"

"Temari. She's a third year"

Shikamaru knew Temari, or at least, he'd seen her around. She and a few other upperclassmen sometimes would smoke behind the tool shed during their mutual lunch period. At least, he thought her name was Temari... but he'd never known her to have any relation to Kankuro.

"I don't know how much she cares about coffee either though," Kankuro wondered aloud. "She is always complaining."

* * *

He saw Temari walking out of the gates a few minutes after school ended. A few feet before she stepped off the grounds, she stopped and reached into her bag to pull out a cigarette and matchbox.

Shikamaru had never seen someone his age (give or take a few years) carrying around a matchbox.

It gave him a chance to catch up to where she was standing.

"You're Temari?" He asked, walking to her, "Could I have a moment?"

Up close she was much more striking than she had been from a distance. She was just as attractive, no matter how he looked at her, but standing a foot away he could see the paleness of her face and the darkness beneath her eyes. Their age gap was palpable in her appearance when compared to his.

And so he wondered, still, had she not accepted his request... how would his life have turned out?

Reaching out to her, Shikamaru had taken her matchbox and struck her light. She watched him carefully beneath heavy lashes and leaned in with the unlit cigarette between her lips.

* * *

"Hey. Shikamaru. Are you awake? I used your shower."

His ribs were sore from sleeping wrong, but he lifted himself up onto his elbows anyway. The light was on in the bathroom, which he suspected was more cause of his waking up than the noise she was making.

"You're leaving right after sex?"

She shrugged, zipping up the side of skirt. "I have work early tomorrow," she gave a short laugh, "and you're one to talk."

Shikamaru brushed his bangs out of his eyes. "Do you have a cigarette?"

"I thought you quit," Ikuyo responded, but then she lifted her purse from the floor and brought out a half-empty pack.

"It's more work than I thought."

"That's what they say."

He sighed and rolled onto his back. She opened the bathroom door and light spilled into his bedroom. The scent of soap and water seeped out.

"You'll catch a cold if you don't dry your hair," he called out, throwing an arm over his eyes to sink back into darkness. "And your bra is inside-out."

He heard Ikuyo come out of the bathroom again and threw on her shirt, probably pausing to refasten the buttons.

"I'm just going home, so it's no problem."

Shikamaru reached out his hand to grope the bedside table for his phone.

"It's only eleven." He sighed again, putting his phone back down and then pulling the sheet sideways to expose the bed. "Let's go again."

"I have  _work_  in the morning." And then: "You do the same thing all the time."

He frowned, moving onto his elbows once more, "what a drag."

"Sorry. See you later." Ikuyo flipped her hair out from beneath her collar and then walked out of the room. A few seconds later, Shikamaru heard the front door close.

He glanced at his phone again and thought about calling up someone else. There was a boy who worked two shops down. And a girl that ran the same loop around the park as him. He had their numbers and considered dialing one (or both) of them before deciding against it and throwing his phone to the bottom of the bed.

Shikamaru had never had many friends to begin with. Choji and Ino had always been more like family, and when he'd jumped ahead in school, he'd never quite made relationships with his older classmates.

He'd never had time, being so wholly preoccupied with one individual, to concentrate on the rest of his youth.

Shikamaru pressed his face into his pillow. He'd  _seen_  Temari today. She'd walked into his shop.

At the time, it was as if he had stopped breathing. There had been a noise deep in his throat. Somehow though, he'd managed around his complete and utter state of shock.

After all, Temari was the first person he'd ever—

_God_. It was so strikingly  _unfair_  of her to come into his head right now. Right then. Right when he had moved on and off and had established a life for himself so poignantly absent of her participation — just as she had always wanted it.

And yet he could still picture the line of her back, her clavicles beneath the wrinkled uniform shirt. Her eyes peering up through her bangs. The feeling of holding her wrist, the bones and pules encompassed in his fingers.

" _Shit_."

Shikamaru grabbed the pillow beside his head and threw it across the room.

He sat up, crossing his legs beneath him.

She still had the same air about her. Temari. She hadn't changed. Not at all.

Even when they would stand together, side by side on the roof, fingers clenched around the railing and the sun beating down the backs of their necks, she was still the same.

* * *

"What are you doing here?"

Ikuyo walked over to where he stood behind the counter. "Came to see you."

"Do we have plans today?"

She slipped her bag off her shoulders and moved to sit at the counter. "No. I thought I'd just stop by."

He raised his brows and smirked disbelievingly. "You came to see  _me_? And don't sit there, that's for customers."

She tilted her head and looked like she wanted to pursue it, but eventually stood, leaving her bag on the stool, and came to stand behind the counter with him.

"I was worried about you."

"Worried?" he asked when she was beside him, but didn't follow it up. "What can I help you with?"

It was a Thursday afternoon and the only customers still hanging around were the regulars that didn't care whether he had a girl behind the counter or not. It was easy to lean closer to her and whisper into her ear what  _she_  could help him with.

Ikuyo laughed and put a hand on his chest to push him back a few inches.

It would have been easy to take her to the back room. He wouldn't have been long and the urge was quite palpable. He normally wouldn't have entertained the idea, but he was ready to propose it seriously when Ikuyo nudged him and he glanced up to see the interrupting customer.

Temari stood in the entryway, staring back at him with a striking expression.

He smiled, quickly, and with effort. Ikuyo moved away to let him help the customer and so Shikamaru leaned his hands on the counter and tilted his head, saying the last thing that came to mind: "Hello again. If I remember correctly, you came in with Tenten, right?"

He thought about that before. Tenten. They work together. He'd known Tenten for a year or so now. He sometimes wonders how close Temari had been; how close she was.

She said she was alone, so Shikamaru walked her over to the table he'd sat her at before — the furthest from the entrance and the counter where he usually stayed — and told her what he would tell any customer.

She wasn't special. Not anymore.

Or at least, she shouldn't be. She had absolutely no right to be.

"The  _reason_  I'm here," Ikuyo had decided to take a seat at the counter and he didn't stop her this time, "is because you're acting differently."

Shikamaru glanced at her beneath his lashes as he placed a ceramic mug before her and filled it with coffee. It was easier to stay back here where he could forget, or ignore, Temari. "I am?"

"You were so into it last time. And you called me twice last night."

"Maybe I have a crush on you?"

"Right. Okay."

Shikamaru bit his tongue.

"I'm worried."

"Because I called you?"

Ikuyo sipped the coffee and then pointed behind him to the cream. "You're the coldest man I've ever met," she clarified as he poured cream into her mug. "Are you sick or something?"

"Maybe." He answered vaguely.

"You can talk to me you know." She paused. "If you want."

"There's no problem."

Ikuyo stood without finishing her drink, clearly not believing him but not interested enough to pursue the topic. "Right then. Well, I'll be going."

"See you later."

"How about this time you wait for me to call." It wasn't a question.

Shikamaru laughed under his breath but it was cold. "I'll try."

* * *

He wondered why Temari came in.

Perhaps her coworker, Tenten, had told her something about him? Maybe she had mentioned the shop or the coffee.  _His_  shop or  _his_  coffee.

Temari was well versed in coffee appreciation after all, and Shikamaru was known for a wide variety of artful blends.

No, that couldn't be. She had been staring so intently: surprised, and with a look that seemed somewhat pleased to see him.

Shikamaru laughed out loud to the empty street. He was on his way home and the vast majority of office-workers were already home with their families.

He kicked an old newspaper laying on the street.

Temari shouldn't bother with him. He'd only continue to ignore her.

And what did it matter?

He'd forgotten about it anyway. It no longer kept at him.

That was all there was: them embracing each other and then her throwing him away.

He'd forgotten everything.

* * *

"Yeah?"

"Shikamaru Nara. I'm a first year."

Temari tilted her head. The collar on her uniform was undone by a few buttons and he could see the skin curve where neck met shoulder.

"I know who you are."

He wasn't nervous but he certainly was taken aback. He wondered — briefly, a flash if anything — if she'd seen him around. Did she think of him in any way: the young one? In the logic club?

Perhaps, when he walked by the tool shed on his way back to class, she saw him like he'd seen her.

"Well, uh, your brother said you worked your grandfather's coffee shop?"

Temari blinked. "Which one?"

"Which shop?"

"Which brother?"

Shikamaru wasn't aware she'd had more than one. "Kankuro. We're in the same class."

Temari seemed to think about this for a second, lifting her cigarette back to her lips and inhaling.

"So," she said when she had lowered the smoke, "Kankuro told you I worked in the coffee shop?"

"Yes." Shikamaru scratched his neck. He felt young around her. He was taller, yes, but skinny and gawky and she looked like a woman when he was still so obviously a child. "And I was, uh, wondering if you could possibly introduce us?"

Temari raised her brows. Her eyebrows were as light as her eyelashes and he thought that perhaps, were he not so interested in her to begin with, her expressions would not be as daunting as she probably meant them to be.

Eventually she lifted her cigarette back to her mouth and took a breath. This time, she kept the smoke in her mouth for a minute before letting out. Eventually she parted her lips and he tried not to trace the movement with his eyes.

"It's odd for you to be interested in it." She smiled at him then, genuine and bright. "But I'll introduce you two. I'm headed there now, if you'll walk me."

* * *

_The sun beat down on his neck and his tie was suddenly much too constricting but he didn't feel he had the capability to undo his hands from the railing._

_"I thought you'd be too excitable and brash," Temari said, leaning her elbows on the metals rail on the roof, "but you're easy to talk to."_

_He couldn't breathe._

_"I like you, Shikamaru."_

_Her smile was as bright as the sunlight._

* * *

He hated that he recollected things in detail.

Hated that he had such a specific memory.

When he got home he reached for his phone.

Anyone would do. Anyone.

He wouldn't call Ikuyo. Someone else.

As long as they didn't smile like the sun or say anything (i love you) untrue. As long as they could make him forget the sunken feeling that hadn't left him all day.

_Her_.

Someone that could make these weak and pathetic memories disappear.

Anyone would do.

* * *

"...tastes," he says, heart pounding in his chest, "don't seem to change from the past."

Temari doesn't move.

Her fingers are clenched around the mug, but he has seen them before, long and more delicate than her lifestyle would lead anyone to believe. He looks down again, just to make sure, but the ring is still gone. She isn't looking at him and so he leans down and tells her.

Tells her he knows.

She looks terrified and maybe he meant to scare her like he did, maybe he always wanted to... To hurt her or frighten her or make her feel as much as he did. As much as he does, as he always had.

This time Shikamaru is in control and so he leans back and takes a sip of his coffee. He doesn't taste anything though (he wonders if she knows just how astoundingly out of control he is) and he puts down the mug and tilts his head down at her.

"Visiting my cafe several times like this. I tried to ignore you. Wanted to." He gives a cold smile. "You came in by accident one day. I thought it'd be better to ignore you than deal with it."

She seems too far away and so he leans in again. "But you're here now, aren't you? Should we talk about the past then? What you said ten years ago... about having a so-called 'normal life'?"

Temari swallows and he is so close and the cafe is so silent that he can hear her every movement.

"That's what you said, isn't it? 'I want to live a normal life, so I don't want to see you ever again. This relationship ends at graduation. You should come to your senses.' That is what you said, I'm sure."

He can hear a heart beat and he isn't sure whose it is.

"It's such a shame," he says, inhaling and moving away. "I still haven't come to my senses. I still never think about the consequences." He bites his tongue. "I still sleep with women — and men — older. Much older. And sometimes younger. Too much younger. You opened my eyes to it all."

She hasn't moved, knuckles white around the rim of his mug and he wouldn't be surprised if the ceramic broke in her grip.

"...Shikamaru..."

He sighs through a smile. "About the article: there are other occupants more willing to talk. I know you don't want to be here."

"Shikamaru."

He breaks. His chest hurts. "Go back!"

Temari reacts so quickly her mug falls to its side as her wrist snaps backwards. The remaining coffee spills out onto the counter and pools as the mug rolls off and onto the floor. Neither of them make any move or inclination to grab it before the ceramic splinters against the floor in a sharp  _crack_.

Shikamaru hangs his head, palms pressing against the counter, his weight forcing the corners to dig into his skin. "I said 'go back'. I apologize for ignoring you so strangely." He takes a long breath. "I myself don't understand why I did that."

He straightens and this time Temari is looking at him, straight into his eyes, on her own accord.

"So  _go_ ," he says, pushing himself off the counter and turning around.

"Shikamaru," she tries once more.

"Leave. And don't come here again. I'm begging you."

"Shikamaru."

He doesn't say anything, and after half a minute, the legs of her stool vibrate as she pushes away from the counter. The click of her heel on the ground is short and timed and when she gets to the door the bell rings as she opens it.

"I'll be back." She says softly.

Shikamaru turns around as quickly as she dealt the blow. He stares at her. She is slim in her suit, accented by the light behind her. Only a silhouette in the sunshine.

"The article. I've already written it around you. I'm almost done."

He isn't breathing.

"And moreover, I want to know what you've done since high school. I want to know all about your life." He swallows. "I want to know everything."

And then she is gone.

* * *

Temari comes over to his apartment on a Wednesday afternoon.

It's a ruse as soon as he gets to the door and both of them know it.

The day is cool and her coat thin. She is wearing a dress this time, nude-colored and tight around the bust. He has only shrugged on an extra sweater and is sure he's sweating through the material anyway, but somehow he tries to keep his cool as she follows him back from where they met at the station.

" _I shouldn't have come at all_ ," Shikamaru guesses, holding the door slightly ajar as he glances back at her. "Is that what you're thinking?"

Temari narrows her eyes.

"You're wrong. I'm coming in."

He tries to shrug (as if her choices were never a concern of his) but it comes off weak as she waits for him to enter first. Shikamaru hits the light switch when the door closes behind her.

The apartment is practically empty. There is plastic covering the wall from top to bottom and then a table in the center — also covered in plastic — with a few opened boxes on top.

"I told you I just moved in," he answers her look. "Don't take your shoes off. I'm having the floors redone."

Temari glances down at her shoes and then back up at him as though she hadn't been able to understand without the visual.

He can smell a hint of floral beneath the chemicals and he assumes it is her perfume. He has never smelled it before and he wonders how long she has been wearing it. Everyday? Since she has been coming to the shop?

Maybe since high school?

He couldn't know. If she had, if he had held her while she wore flowery perfume, he may not remember. He had purposefully pushed out so many memories of her everything that the person before him was as much a stranger as she was familiar.

"How long has this been going on," she asks after a minute, reaching out to touch the nearest wall. Her fingers glide over the plastic and her eyes trace the trajectory of the film on the wall all the way up to the ceiling.

Shikamaru turns away from her and walks further into his apartment.

"Since I moved in."

"Is that so?" Temari asks.

He can't see her, but hears her movements as she steps out of the entryway and moves down the wall of what will be the living room.

"It will be a nice place when you're done with it. And you're cafe is doing well. You've been working hard."

Shikamaru has no interest in small talk. No interest at all.

He can't even think.

He glances back and inclines his head. "The bedroom is clean."

He watches as Temari turns to look at him, slow and steady. She blinks.

"Will you stay over?"

* * *

_"You like me too, don't you? I can tell."_

* * *

"What will you do, Temari?"

She has no expression on her face and he thinks that is worse than if she'd been angry or scared or surprised.

His apartment isn't large and he can easily stride into her with three long steps. She moves to try and accommodate as best she can, but he doesn't stop until her back hits the wall she was just eyeing.

Sometimes he forgets how much taller he is; how much bigger, now. And so he places his forearm against the wall, elbow beside her ear as he leans in.

Her chest is rising quickly. He can see it out of the corner of his eye without even looking, so quick are her inhales. Apart from that though, she still has yet to facially react.

"Shi—"

"Coming over to my place," he spits, "and telling me that you want to know everything about me." He laughs, cold and disconcerting, "I'm sure you knew it was going to be like this."

He knows it is mean, cruel even. Harsh and bitten and yet he can't stop. He  _wants_  to hurt her. He wants to make her scream out in anger or weep in apology. He wants her to do something ( _anything_ ) to him. Against him.

He wants her to be as pitiful against him as he has always been against her.

"Coming in here," he starts again, words breathy and mingled with loathing, "with your sugar-coated words and... I can't trust you." He leans closer. "You know I haven't changed. I will never have interest talking business with you..." He inhales. "I only want you on your knees."

He feels more ridiculous than he hopes he appears.

But she doesn't move away or cringe at his threat and vulgarity.

"Alright." She whispers. And then louder: "I'll stay over."

His heart skips a beat and Shikamaru whips his whole form back and away from her and the wall.

"—What?"

Temari looks down for a second before glancing up to meet his eyes. "I said it's fine. It's a holiday tomorrow, so I'll stay over." Her fingers wrap around the outside of his hand to gently lift it to her face. Her skin is hot and the nail of her thumb pushes against his palm, probing.

"Shikamaru," she says, bringing his hand to brush along her lips and chin as she speaks, "let's do what we used to... back then."

* * *

She placed the coffee before him on the counter.

"Do you always change before work?" He asked.

Temari laughed. "Who wants to be served by a high schooler?"

"You don't," he began quickly, but then wisely shut his mouth and took an elongated sip of coffee.

_You don't look like you're in high school_  is what he was probably going to say, she thought. After all, she heard it frequently enough.

Temari considered finishing the sentence, but that would only embarrass him. He was cute though, and something about his demeanor made her want to tease him.

But before she could, he put down the mug and looked at her as though she were the sun, "that blend is even better than the one Choji used to bring." He looked back at his hands circling the cup. "It tastes... wonderful."

She stopped, surprised. She had always thought the same thing, most people did, but she had never seen someone say so with much luminosity and genuineness. "Thank you," she said, slowly and deliberate.

Shikamaru Nara had piqued her interest a long time ago when she had first seen him solve the practically unsolvable math proposition Ms. Yurika put on the board at the beginning of the year. There had been a crowd around his classroom door and she had stopped to see the fuss.

He was tall and it looked as though the rest of his body had yet to get the memo. He was skinny and fidgety with the chalk, not quite used to his own movements, but still, he moved his bangs out of the way and gazed at the board with dark eyes bright and filled with excitement.

She had taken note of him that first day and hadn't let his own brief glances at her escape her notice.

But then he was lighting her cigarette and sitting before her at her grandfather's shop and she thought that just maybe, perhaps, she might get to know him better than the occasional glance.

* * *

Temari's fingers are sweaty and she hopes he doesn't notice how nervous she is.

It is the first time since they parted ways a decade before that she has been in control.

And she is still, judging by the way he is watching her with wide eyes and the pulse in his wrist jumping erratically against her hand.

His fingers feel the same. Perhaps thicker, but his nails are still trimmed and his knuckles knobby. She thinks, perhaps, maybe, he is only testing her. He is trying to make her turn and run — but if she was going to run she would have done it as soon she walked into his coffee shop.

She brings his hand to her mouth and places his fingertips against her lips. Her blood is pulsing through her body and all she can feel is him. Slowly she slips her tongue against his forefinger and brings it into her mouth.

The appendage is foreign as she scrapes her bottom teeth against him. Shikamaru hasn't said anything but his breath is coming in pants and a blush is spread across his cheeks. He looks exactly like he did when he was fourteen.

Temari wraps her tongue around his finger and Shikamaru flinches. He's still the same, she thinks, just as he used to be. He hasn't changed one bit. He responds to every little thing I say. And every movement. He makes the same face.

He hasn't forgotten about me, she confirms, moving his fingers from between her lips to cup her cheek.

Only now his hair is longer and pulled back, though his bangs still fall in his eyes. And his jaw isn't as narrow and his biceps not just products of being too skinny but are thicker with actual muscle that comes with age and he has a practically imperceptible stubble lines his face.

But he is still the little boy she knew in high school.

(Somewhere in the back of her mind she remembers that he isn't. That he never was, no matter how she spun it, no matter which filter she put it. And so she lied through her teeth for years, to herself, to him, to anyone who asked (he was just a kid. She hadn't run away. He had just been a kid)).

Shikamaru comes to his senses then, grabbing her jaw roughly and pulling her mouth to his. He meets her with his lips parted, just like she'd taught him all those years ago.

Shikamaru still wants me, she says to herself, over and over as he bites at her tongue, spreads his hands over her face and neck, consumes her in every way he can.

The kiss is wet and so overtly erotic that Temari feels herself go weak and has to push him away.

He moves off but keeps his forehead against hers. "What are you thinking?" He whispers, lips red and wet with her own saliva.

He pushes away then, putting the hand that she had previously manipulated and placing it on her sternum, fingers dipping into her collar bone for an instant before moving down her chest, between her breasts. His hand rises and falls as her lungs try to get in enough air to allow her to think clearly.

"I can't read you," he says, eyes looking up from where they were following his hand to lock her gaze. His moves his hand back to the dip of her collarbone and grips her dress in his hand, making a fist and dragging her closer. "What's wrong?"

Without waiting for her answer, Shikamaru leans into a kiss again.

Her body is alight in every nerve and she has no memory of ever feeling like this, though she knows she must have at one point.

Day after day, she wants to tell him, somehow I manage to breathe. It's like being submerged under stagnant waters. No passion for work. No hobbies to enjoy.

Shikamaru moves his hands to grip her waist as he slowly moves down her body.

She has never been able to love anyone. A failed marriage. A distant family.

Shikamaru grabs her hand now, kneeling, and brings her fingers to his mouth. His tongue circles her knuckle and she distantly remembers the first time in the locker room when he licked her fingers after she'd shown him where she liked to be touched.

She wants to tell him that she is sorry. That she never forgot him. That in leaving she ruined her own life as much as she'd ruined his.

But instead she waits, masochistic, almost, until Shikamaru pulls away and holds her hand up to his eyes. She knows what he is looking at.

"No ring," he says, "why is that?"

Slowly, his eyes look up to meet hers.

"You got married." It isn't a question. "I heard it was quite the wedding."

She says nothing.

What can she say? She got married. Deliberately and selfishly.

It is too hard to breathe.

"Temari?" He prompts.

"...I got divorced. It was a failed marriage. Didn't work out."

Shikamaru stares at her. She can see how hard he is beneath his trousers in the way he kneels before her. But he makes no move to continue. He just watches her with an unreadable look behind his eyes.

Eventually he lets go of her hands and slaps them away when she tries to reach forward.

"What the hell?" He snaps, standing up to full height.

"Shikamaru—"

"I'm asking you what the hell that is? You just happen to meet me when you're divorced and lonely?"

She reaches out again. "That's not true. Shikamaru, I—"

He shoves her back against the wall by her shoulders. "Don't  _touch_  me," he snaps, stepping further from her.

His face is red and his chest moves in a different way this time. He is searing and it is expressed in every movement.

"Does it," he manages, looking at his feet, fists clenched by his sides, "does it please you to know that I'm full of lingering feelings for you? Do you get off on knowing how pitiful I am for you?"

Shikamaru looks up at her. "Say it." He says slowly. "Did I make you feel good just now? Like the times when we were in high school?"

His eyes are cold and she knows,  _she knows_ , she deserves everything he says.

"Answer me!"

She can't defend herself. He is right, he always was.

She loved him. She loved him more than she has ever loved herself. She should have given him everything she had. She should have given him anything he wanted.

"You give no excuses," he laughs, short and lifeless, "just like back then. You don't even lie. Why not at least lie about it? Why not give me some reason so that I wouldn't have to know that I wasn't enough? That I was never enough for you. It's been ten years and you're still exactly the same."

"Shikamaru,  _please_."

"What happened just now... that.. it didn't happen. We never saw each other." He steps out of her line of sight and to the side, shoving his hands in his pockets and turning so that he doesn't have to look at her.

Temari scratches her nails against her opposite arm.

"It ends here," he says, licking his lips, "goodbye, Temari."

* * *

"Yeah, I don't know," she says, "I can't get hold of him...Yes, I tried the cafe."

She makes a left when she exits the stairwell. She never comes into this building except to see Shikamaru, so she knows her way to his door well enough to not be searching for it and to not be observing the scene.

Ikuyo sees the woman when she is three feet before the door. Her face is red and her hair falling out of its clasp and the collar of her dress is a tad wrinkled. She is taking deep breaths, as though she must gather herself, or perhaps to calm down.

"Are you okay?" Ikuyo asks, and as if only now realizing that she had company, the woman pushes herself off from where she was leaning with her back Shikamaru's door and walks past Ikuyo so quickly, the displaced air whisks over Ikuyo's shoulder.

Ikuyo is alone in the hallway now, but the silence doesn't seem anymore peaceful than before.

With a shrug, Ikuyo turns back to the door.

"Oh shit," she tries when she sees the woman's bag still beside the welcome mat. Ikuyo picks it up and tries to run back to the elevators, but the light says that it has already left and the woman is no longer in sight.

She pauses and looks back to the hall and then checks the stairwell just in case, but the woman is long gone.

* * *

"M'am," the cab driver says, eyes watching Temari in the rearview mirror, "there's an accident up ahead. Would you mind if I made a detour?"

Temari clenches her hands in her lap.

"I could make a left and take the highway," the driver says, "or maybe the bridge will get you there faster..."

She can feel her nails dig into her palm. "Anywhere is fine," she snaps, "as long as I can get away from here."

"M'am," the driver is taken aback, "have you been drinking? Are you feeling well?"

She ignores him and leans further down over her lap. She can't get enough air into her lungs and every limb of her body is so sore she feels as though she might physically break apart.

It was so easy back then... to say something.

_I like you, Shikamaru._

Even back then, she knew. She said it deliberately, knowing Shikamaru had feelings for her. Still, she said it as though it would never mean anything.

* * *

"You like me too, don't you? I can tell."

"I—" Shikamaru gripped the railing tighter and looked everywhere but at her: down at a gym class, over the neighboring rooftops, into unblinded windows. "I think my interest is only in you," he said, slowly and with a slight panic in his voice. "When I'm with other people, I don't feel a thing... but when I'm with you, I'm—"

"I know." She stopped him. "I kind of figured it out."

"So, you like me too?"

Temari smiled and reached for his shoulder to pull him around to face her. "Have you been listening to anything I've said?"

* * *

He always had the personality of being too serious and lacking in assertion. He did his work diligently and cared for his classmates appropriately, and he stood out no matter what he did. He was the youngest in the grade, good looking, kind... he was popular without meaning to be and without knowing how to handle it.

And then, from that day onwards, his infatuation with her became apparent and she saw with her own eyes his sole interest in her and her alone.

When he smiled at her from his classroom window, or understood her math homework enough to offer pointers and lead her to the conclusion; when he waited by the gates for her everyday no matter the situation.

And that had left her feeling good.

Shikamaru's transparent nature had satisfied her juvenile conceitedness.

He always made her feel satisfied. And she offered him certain allowances she never realized were anything more than customary. She allowed him to kiss her in the toolshed after school, to push against the wooden table and put his hands on her.

"Temari," he'd say, looking up at her, "I like you. I really like you."

She always had thought, surely, he must know that this was temporary.

After all, he was so  _young_.

"Temari?"

"I feel the same way."

The relationship only existed in the moment, she always knew, as his hands wove their way through her hair, cradling her jaw, as she gripped his shoulders — this kind of relationship will quickly die down.

And inevitably in ten years, no trace of memory would be found.

* * *

The cab accelerates and Temari is thrown back against the seat, head bobbing against the cushion. She brings a hand up to rub her temple.

_Does it please you to know that I'm full of lingering feelings for you?_

She rubs her eyes.

_Did I make you feel good just now? Like the times when we were in high school?_

Yes. You're right, Shikamaru, she wants to say. It made me feel so good that... I felt as if we had gone back to that moment when I was genuinely happy.

The cab turns and the memories of the past fall out of her line of sight.

* * *

"Temari," Tenten calls as she walks over, "the front desk called. Someone is waiting for you downstairs."

"Do you know who?"

"A young woman. That's all they said."

In the lobby, Temari recognizes one of them women sitting in the lobby as Shikamaru's girlfriend and assumes that she is the caller.

"Hello?" Temari tries, coming up to the seat. The woman glances up at her.

"Temari?" The woman stands and extends her hand. "I'm Ikuyo."

"Right. I've seen you around that coffee shop in the station."

Ikuyo smiles. She is more beautiful than Temari remembers and perhaps she compliments Shikamaru more than Temari ever did. "Yes," she says. "I, well uh, I stopped by to give you this."

It's her purse that she'd left the night before. Nothing much is in there — some cash and a notepad — but Temari takes the extended bag.

"You dropped it last night," Ikuyo explains, tilting her head. "There was a business card inside, so I thought I might give you a call."

"Thank-you."

"I admit there was an ulterior motive though," Ikuyo smiles. "Perhaps I might interest you in a cup of coffee?"

* * *

"Thank you again for brining the bag," Temari says when they sit down, "... but there was no need. You could have thrown it away."

Ikuyo laughs under her breath and looks out the window for a second before looking back. "Really... Shikamaru said the same thing."

Temari swallows.

"But you know, I couldn't simply throw it in the rubbish. You clearly had notes on that pad and everything... besides, it's not like you were a complete stranger."

Temari blinks. "Oh.  _Oh_. Ikuyo, I'm nothing more than a schoolmate from Shikamaru's past. If it bothers you there is nothing—"

"What?! No. No no no." She waves her hands in front of her. "I'm not here to talk about anything like that."

"Aren't you two together?"

"God no. Well, I wouldn't call him my lover..." Ikuyo glances off and shrugs half-heartedly. "More like a sex partner, maybe, that's on the level of being a friend?"

Temari inhales and closes her eyes. Of course they're not together. Shikamaru hadn't... She isn't sure if the feeling she has is relief or not.

Ikuyo looks back at her and taps a finger to her lip. "Should I say..." she begins, grey eyes tilting upward as she thinks. "Well, I've known Shikamaru a long time, but there was never one person whom I could refer to as His Lover. Not a single one."

When she looks back at Temari this time, her gaze is long and calculating.

"And I thought you must be the reason behind it. The sole cause of his cold-hearted personality, the turning point in his life."

Temari swallows. "Wha—"

"Do you disagree?" Ikuyo asks. "How surprising..." She mulls this over while mixing cream into her mug. "But I believe that, because you made him this way, you're the one person that can change everything he  _was_ , and  _is_ , now, in just one moment. With just one word." She smiles to herself. "Amazing, isn't it?"

* * *

"You should try mixing those two together," Temari said, pointing to two of the jars on the counter.

Shikamaru licked his lips and wiped his hands on the dish towel thrown over his shoulder before reaching for the assorted types of beans in their respective jars.

"It's best when it's muddy, I think." She said, chin in her right hand as her left pulled at the collar of her uniform.

Shikamaru blushed. Everything she did, every little movement, seemed erotic somehow.

"Hey, Temari," he said, dropping the beans she'd dictated into the grinder. "Do you do it purposefully?"

Temari glanced up at him from where she sat at the counter, distracted. "Do what?"

"Make me fall in love with you?"

Temari smiled and looked away, spreading her elbows out and leaning closer to the surface of the counter. "Idiot."

* * *

"Temari," he called out, running to catch up with her.

Temari paused by the toolshed to turn and see why he was chasing her.

"Hey," he said, throwing his arm carelessly over her shoulder. "What are you up to? Homework?"

"Just going for a walk," she answered coolly, trying to shake hime off. "Come on, Shikamaru, everyone 's staring."

"So?" He posed, but he pulled his arm off her anyway as they continued to walk behind the school. "Oh," he reached into his pocket. "I found that key you were looking for the other day."

She presented her hand. Temari felt her irritation was apparent, but Shikamaru didn't seem to take it into account as he continued to walk beside her.

He covered her hand with his own to place the key in her palm, smiling at her.

A few feet away, two girls from her class walked by. He's so young, one of them said. Yeah, isn't it kind of gross, the other whispered too loudly.

Temari couldn't tell if Shikamaru heard or not, but he made no indication either way, and so she pulled her hand back.

She should date someone her own age, cradle robber, the first one laughed.

"Temari?"

Shikamaru was staring at her questioningly.

"Thanks for the key," she bit out. "I'll be going now." She turned on her heel and walked back the way she'd come.

* * *

"What?"

"I said," Shikamaru tried again, blushing and looking at the horizon, "you should come to my house... since you fuss about me not coming near you during school." He inhaled. "Though I wouldn't mind going to your place."

"Jesus," Temari snapped, "my brothers are there."

"Well then, my place. No one will be home for hours."

Temari sighed, loud and slow.

"I didn't..." Shikamaru's face was bright red now, "I'd like to finish what. Or. I mean, not... you, you know. I'd like to do more... like in the locker room. Again."

He took a step closer and then cleared his throat and moved half a step back.

"It's just us. So... can you come over?"

Temari swallowed. After an uncomfortable silence, she extended her hand. He took it and led further down the street and then around the corner over and over again until they were in his home and in his bed.

She knew it already. And yet, she couldn't stop.

_"Not there. Further to the left."_

_"Here, you like it here?"_

"Just don't leave marks," she said. Would say. When he looked at her as though she were greatest good in the world. And so she let him push her down.

She asked him to push her down as he whispered her name into her skin over and over and over again.

Please, he'd say. I love you. Please.

* * *

"Are you still mad at me?" Shikamaru'd ask when they were finished, lying on his bed, skirt back on and shirt unbuttoned.

"No," she would say, staring at the ceiling. "...I'm not mad..."

His feelings for her were outright conspicuous and it burdened her.

He thought nothing of what was to come.

And that scared her.

* * *

He always got excited on his own, Temari thinks, and always disregarded my feelings.

* * *

"Listen, Temari, should we live together?"

Temari turned in her seat to stare at him. "What?"

"I mean, after I graduate. Or maybe when you graduate..." He kneeled by her desk. "I found a good place right near the college you got into. I can find a job at a cafe. We can be together."

The door opened as the teacher walked in.

"I'll talk to you later," Shikamaru said, standing up and squeezing her shoulder.

What did he mean 'after'? She asked herself. Just how long did he intend for this to keep going on?

* * *

Back then, his feelings intimidated her so much. Her initial conceitedness was long gone and now all that was left was the fear of not being able to see the end of it.

There was Shikamaru, whom was completely blind to his surrounding. And Temari, who couldn't refuse him.

* * *

Once she had left his shop, the bell ringing behind her, Shikamaru bent down to pick up the shattered mug.

_I'll be back._

Ten years ago, he would have died of happiness to hear her say something like that. Today, he wanted nothing more than for her to go away.

He took the dish towel hanging over his shoulder and started mopping up the bit of coffee that had made its way off the counter and onto the floor.

She hadn't been wearing a wedding ring.

* * *

_Shit._

Temari squeezes her hand around the railing on the stairs where she'd caught herself. She takes too long breathes and then lets go and manages to walk the final six steps to the floor her apartment is on.

She reaches into her coat pocket and struggles to find her key among her wallet and rail pass. Eventually she is able to open the door and slip off her shoes before walking the twenty feet to her bedroom and landing face first on her mattress.

It was stupid to go to coffee with Ikuyo. And worse to go drinking with her after that.

She has a meeting early tomorrow as it is.

Temari moves her head to press her cheek into the duvet and looks over at her bookshelf. There is a photograph there, one from her wedding. She owns only a handful of photos, and this was one of them. She hasn't put it up out of pride, but for no other reason than she felt shitty throwing it out and there was the space for it.

She is smiling. Hair much longer than it is now. Her ex-husband is holding her hand.

Briefly, Temari wonders what she was thinking in that photo. At that exact moment, what thoughts were going through her mind? Was she happy?

She is much too drunk for this though. Talking with Ikuyo all night has spread her thoughts too thin and Temari doesn't even know how to grasp reality anymore.

She needs to bathe and then brush teeth before bed, she knows, but instead, Temari curls into herself, business dress and all.

Talking aloud with Ikuyo has brought back more specific memories of her youth. More images, more touches.

"I was always lying. Continuously lying to myself," Temari whispers to the empty room; to her wedding photograph and her still unpacked boxes. "I was the one who started it."

_I like you, Shikamaru._

"And then acted as though it were his fault."

Nowadays, she couldn't care less about her surroundings. She would never care what anyone said about her, about him. If she'd only waited a few years — for the stigma to disappear, for her to mature — just a few years...

_I thought you must be the reason behind it._

Temari feels hot tears pool behind her eyes.

_The sole cause of his cold-hearted personality._

Did Ikuyo really think that Temari could be the one capable of changing him? The person Temari was today... was she really capable of changing Shikamaru?

* * *

"Could you not break into my place next time?"

"The lock was undone."

"Yes," Ikuyo says patiently, hands on her hips as she stands over him, "after you picked it. That is illegal you know."

Shikamaru lifts an arm above his head, pulling his sweater up to reveal a few inches of his stomach. It is half-purposeful and Ikuyo fights the urge to roll her eyes as he lays spread out before her on her couch.

"Why are so late?" He asks, "I thought you didn't have work today?"

Ikuyo stares down at him. She removes her jacket and starts unbuttoning her shirt.

"I  _was_  off work," she says, moving her fingers slowly, "so I went on a date."

"A date?" Shikamaru laughs, but it is not genuine. Nothing he has done for the past month has been genuine. "And you didn't fuck him?"

"It was a girl. And we were at a hotel."

Eventually Ikuyo stops undoing her shirt right above her navel and then begins re-buttoning it.

"What are you doing?" Shikamaru asks. He sits up.

"Aren't you going to ask who I was with?"

He scoffs. "Are you trying to make me jealous?"

Ikuyo does roll her eyes now, finishing with her shirt and walking to the other side of the couch to take a sip from the wine that Shikamaru had probably poured himself. "Don't insult me," she says once she has swallowed.

"Well then, who were you with?"

"You know her."

"I do?"

Ikuyo thinks he knows the answer the instant before it is out of her mouth. "Temari, you know, your high school girlfriend."

Shikamaru's expression doesn't change, exactly. His features are all the same, still arranged in the exact same way and with the same parts, but suddenly the air about him has changed and Ikuyo feels as though she is being looked at with more intensity than she has ever known him to be capable of. The jealousy is prominent, and the unbridled fury even palpable, but more than anything, he expresses such hurt that she can't stop herself from continuing.

"I've been with her for the past five or so hours." Ikuyo smirks, "She's lovely. Clever and kind. Beautiful... it made me want to take her."

Shikamaru exhales. "Why not go off with her then? Drag her off somewhere and stop bothering with me."

"God," Ikuyo says, low and lot less of the alcohol talking than she'd like to admit, "you're so fucking obvious. You're not a kid anymore, Shikamaru. Stop being so pitiful." She spits out the last word.

Shikamaru stands and pushes past her.

"So what? You went to return her bag, didn't you? I told you to throw that out, Ikuyo. But no, of course you couldn't mind you're own fucking business."

She turns on him and jams a finger into his chest. "If you wanted it in the trash, you should have thrown it there yourself!" She pokes him again. "And don't bullshit me, Shikamaru, if you really didn't care for her anymore, would you even be acting like this?"

"Shut up," he bites back, stepping away and looking at the floor. "Mind your own business."

Ikuyo throws her hands up. "Grow up already, Shikamaru!" She takes a deep breath.

After a moment, once the energy in the room has died down, Shikamaru sits back down on the couch, placing his elbows on his knees and wringing his hands together.

"Up until now," Ikuyo continues, "you've always ended the relationship as soon as your partner became serious, haven't you? More than anything, you hate when people love you."

"That's right," Shikamaru snaps, looking up at her. "That's why I like people like you. People who don't love me."

"God," Ikuyo laughs, desperate and dry, "you're so fucked up."

Shikamaru gives a small smile. "Yeah," he says, "I get that a lot." He licks his lips and looks at her. "But hey, you're one to talk."

She runs a hand through her hair. "I guess you're right." She says. She pats his head after another moment of silence, and then walks to her kitchen to get a second wine glass and to grab the open bottle.

"Hey, Ikuyo," Shikamaru mummers when she gets back. He is staring at the floor with one knee propped on the couch. His body is usually tall and elegant, but right now he looks like a teenager: unsure and conscious of that fact. He rubs his neck. "What did Temari say about me?"

Ikuyo laughs, loud and long. "Do you really want to know?"

He says nothing.

"Well, after having a lot to drink, she confessed everything. She told me about how you lit her cigarette and how she broke your heart." Ikuyo pours him a glass and then comes to sit beside him on the couch. "You know, I think she regrets the past. She regrets ever...well, it seems as though she too was never able to forget you."

Shikamaru takes the glass from her hand and doesn't down it like she expects. Instead he takes a small sip and then undoes the hair he'd pulled back into a ponytail, running a hand through it.

"Hey Shikamaru," Ikuyo says once he is done, "you should try again. Start your regretful love anew. Most people don't get that opportunity, you know, to rewind time like that. Even though she got married and ten years have passed, the two of you remain..." she trails off for lack of a proper word to use.

Shikamaru takes another sip of his cabernet. Finally he bites his tongue. "Did you really fuck her tonight?"

She places a hand on his back. "No. I never would have even tried."

* * *

It's true, Shikamaru knows, everything Ikuyo has ever supposed about him.

The past ten years... well, not one day did he ever think of it as a  _Past_.

Everything from those moments, he thinks, from the way I live to the way I think... everything about me now connects back to her. Everything now, everything as it was —

"Sorry to intrude at your place of work."

— all of it was because of her.

She is wearing a blue dress today. He has seen her a dozen times since the first day she walked in and not once has she worn the same outfit twice. He wonders (has wondered, sometimes) how many dresses she has. In his memories she only has her uniforms from school and from her grandfather's coffee shop and that is it. Now she is a world of unknown to him, although she watches him with familiar eyes.

He'd known it from the moment she'd walked in that first day: he was still, always, irrevocably, superlatively in love with her.

"I'd like to wait for you, if you don't mind."

Shikamaru stares at her. The line of her collar bone and the set of her jaw. Even through his hate, his hurt, she still always shone as bright as the sun to him.

"Go back," he says without much bite.

"Then serve me as your customer," she says, heels clicking on the wooden planks as she steps closer to the counter. "I'd like a cup of your house blend, please."

He swallows. "Fine."

He places a mug before her and pours the pot behind him into it.

On the last day he saw her, she cut him out of her life by telling him that she wanted to be  _normal_ , that their relationship was  _wrong_  and  _inappropriate_.

_The only reason I was with you was to raise my own confidence. That's all there was to it. I don't want to see you again._

In those words she had disappeared. This foolishly earnest woman, he thinks, had so easily cut me out of her life.

But, all this time, I could never once forget a thing about her.

He feels her eyes on him as he waits on customers and even though there must be some point during which she left or averted her gaze, for even an instant, he never feels the eyes burning into his back falter. Not once.

* * *

"We're closed," he says once the final customers have left and he has dismissed his two employees. He isn't facing her — he isn't sure, if he was, that he would be able to force her to leave.

"I know," Temari says, pushing her stool away from the counter. "Do you need some help?" Shikamaru can't help it — he looks up from where he is washing out some of the still dirty glasses in the sink and stares at her.

She slips out of her trench coat and lays the garment on the counter.

"I can do it to you know." She comes behind the counter and stands a few feet from him. "We used to work together at grandpa's cafe." She smiles to herself and Shikamaru feels as though he is fourteen again, lost and open and completely out of control.

"I'll do the dishes," Temari tries, "you can check up on the stock—"

He slams his fist against the top of the sink. "Temari!"

She whips her head to him, seemingly surprised and Shikamaru thinks that his heart might just be thudding hard enough to break his ribs. The air is too thick.

He squeezes the dishtowel in his hand. "I am so tired of this." His words are slow and broken. His apron feels too tight around his hips and his collar to constricting. He hasn't seen her since she left his apartment two weeks before.

Shikamaru's hand clench the dishtowel harder, spilling water over the knobs of his fingers as they turn white.

"I always end up falling for people like you... people who will tell me they love me one day and the next throw me away like a piece of trash. You were  _humiliated_  to be seen with me, Temari. You denied my feelings entirely."

He doesn't look at her. He doesn't make any movement whatsoever to apologize or prompt a response. He just waits, fingers scratching at the wooden counter, half hoping the next thing he hears will be the door slamming behind her; but instead he hears the swish of her dress as she grabs a second dishtowel from one of the shelves below.

"I'll help," is all she says, "we can finish this quickly and then we finish what we were doing the other night."

He snaps his head to look at her, but Temari is staring down at the half dozen unwashed glasses, turning on the water and soaping up her hands and towel.

"Shikamaru," she begins, voice steady and patient. He is staring at her unblinking, holding his breath. "For us, it would be difficult to go back ten years in time. Or to even start where we left off." She smiles, softly, and mainly to herself. "But it should be possible to start again. Anew, if you will."

Shikamaru takes a breath shortly and then immediately starts coughing from having inhaled incorrectly. Temari doesn't address this and continues washing.

The flesh of her hand peeks through the bubbles as she scrubs the cups, gently and with much more grace than he ever knew her to have.

"I don't know if you'll come to like the person I am now." She says, concentrating on her task, "And I can't promise that I will ever be able to wholly apologize and right my wrong." She lilts her head to the side and looks straight ahead at the cabinets a few inches from her face. "And you may be right in saying that I'm looking for an escape from the succumbed experience of divorce..."

Slowly, purposefully, Temari turns her head to stare right at him. He watches every tint in her eye, every minuscule movement.

"But, Shikamaru," she gives, "I love the way you are now."

Slowly, he takes another breath.

"I sincerely feel as though I love every single part of your being."

He wonders how she says things so simply, so clearly, with so much straight forward intent. And then he remembers that once, a long time ago, he did the exact same.

* * *

"Shikamaru?" He hears her call out, the knob twisting, "are you in the bathroom?"

She walks in before he can respond and is immediately met with a blast of hot water.

Temari stumbles back, arms going up to hide her face, although there is no point now — she is already soaking.

"Shit! What the fuck, Shikamaru?"

He is sitting on the edge of the tub, still fully clothed, with the now dripping shower-head pointing directly at her.

Shikamaru bites his lip and leans his elbow on his knee. "I was thinking," he says, "that if you got wet, you wouldn't be able to go home tonight."

Temari pauses, staring, and then laughs, leaning over to squeeze the excess water out of her hair.

"Well," she says, still laughing, "I can't go home now." And then, suddenly very serious in tone, she reaches for him, wet hand extended, fingers inviting, "but don't worry. I never intended to."

It isn't slow when Shikamaru grabs her, still sitting on the lip of the bath. He fists one hand into the material of her dress by her ribs and grabs the back of her head with other, extending his fingers through her hair and tugging her closer.

The kiss is technically chaste, just the joining of lips, but Temari breathes through her mouth still, sucking his air in and expelling her breath over him, and he feels more explicit than he ever has before.

Temari grabs his face by his ear and scratches her nails against him as he slips forward off the bath and onto his knees before her, finally parting so as to get in enough oxygen to continue.

"God," Shikamaru manages, "I want to mess you up." He can't help the grin, buried in her abdomen as presses his forehead against her stomach, "but now... more than that, I just want to make you feel good."

Temari doesn't respond.

He runs his hands up her sides, parting his fingers over her ribs, beneath her breasts, feeling the bones and formed cage, listening to her labored breathing.

"It seems nothing has changed," he says, "...the places you liked."

Temari manages a light laugh.

And nothing has changed. He might as well be fourteen and ready to come in his pants before she's even come close to touching him. But when he looks up at her, and she smiles at him like he always wanted her to, he feels the blush spread across his face and thinks that perhaps ten, twenty, thirty years would be worth it if she were there at the end.

Shikamaru stops and grabs her shoulders, pulling her down and into him. He hugs her until there is no space in between, until their heartbeats snap as counterpoints to each other.

Temari accepts him, the pads of her fingers imprinting either clavicle as she holds on and they both secretly hope that neither will let go.

* * *

The sound of the creaks is practically drowned out by the amount of blood pulsing through her ear, or at least it was, until he started pushing harder and now the creaking of the bed is all she hears over his mostly uncompleted whispers and her own inability to focus on anything but what she is feeling.

There is so much sweat, she thinks. So much that she can barely open her eyes to see him, the perspiration falling off his shoulders or pooling above her brow.

And still, she wants nothing more than to see him, to be closer, to grip onto him instead of onto the sheet.

She must have said this aloud, because he leans down and pulls her close, whispering into her ear and not complaining when she breaks the skin on his back.

Was sex always something that felt this good?

"No," he says, laughing and pulling away, gripping her hip to keep her on him, "never. Never with anyone but you."

And then she realizes, belatedly, that she had probably said that out loud too.

* * *

"So loud," he complains, rolling over and squinting his eyes open. "What's with that noise?"

Temari is sitting with her back against the far wall of his bedroom, tapping at her keyboard with quick strokes.

Shikamaru takes a deep breath. It hadn't been a dream then?: her, coming over, spending the night? In all honesty, he wouldn't have been surprised to wake up to any one of the many people that has shared his bed.

Pushing up onto his elbows and then further onto his hands, Shikamaru rises. His whole body is sore, from his spine to his ankles and he wonders at what point exactly did he manage to put pajamas on.

"Oh," Temari says as soon as he's moved off the bed, "you're up." She smiles, setting her laptop down and uncrossing her legs from beneath her to stand. "Good." She decides, stretching with her arms above her head.

He wants to throw her back on the bed this instant.

"Go shower," Temari yawns. "Then we can go get something to eat. I can finish up my report later."

Her yawn is contagious and he finds himself reciprocating, walking forward to lean his forehead on her shoulder. She is fully dressed and has already brushed her teeth, but still, underneath the mint and her own smell, he can smell his cologne on her and it is less deliberate but satisfyingly arousing.

"Okay," he says.

After a moment's pause, he raises his head and leans his weight off her and moves back to the bed, slipping off his shirt in the process.

He feels comfortable. And content. Satisfied in a way he didn't necessarily know he'd been lacking. It wouldn't be easy, weaving themselves together. It would take work, but he had always been willing to give her anything she asked for, so why stop now?

Shikamaru is opening one of his drawers to find a shirt for the day when Temari clears her throat.

"Say, Shikamaru..."

"Yeah?" He asks, pulling off his pajama bottoms.

"Do you remember your first love?"

He pauses, about to pull down his underwear. He turns to look at her and sees her staring back.

"What? My first love?"

Temari nods.

"That's out of the blue. Why?"

Temari looks away, fixing the clasp on her necklace. "For me it was my cousin. And you?"

She is clearly thinking about something, but Shikamaru doesn't understand what she means.

He frowns and looks at her as though the answer is so poignantly apparent that she must be defected to not know his reply.

"Well, it was you of course."

Temari whips around to face him, surprised, and he doesn't quite know why. But he chuckles at her anyway and pats her shoulder on the way to the bathroom.

"Give me a minute, I'll get ready. Then we can go."

* * *

 


End file.
